May 07, 2013

Do You Have it in You?

The title of the post was the tag-line of the adverts for Indian Army during my school days. While thinking of the title as I write these words, it just flashed into my mind. Five years in an army medical college, and several army doctors as close friends, have given me a good idea of what life in the armed forces is. It's tough. Very tough. And still, I am using this tag line to mark a post that talks about the attributes or qualities of a screen-writer. The reason is simple. Writing, too, is an extremely tough profession. I think it is one of the toughest in the world. Those who disagree have no idea what writing is. Those who agree, well, please send me a cheque. I badly need one.

I recently chanced upon this website, which is an amazing source of inspiration and knowledge for a screenwriter. It is so vast that I am struggling to keep up with my daily subscription of its posts. Every day, it gives me something that rejuvenates my spirits. A few weeks ago, it ran a series on the attributes of a screenwriter, the skills and traits one should possess if he or she is bitten by the film-writing bug. For long, I wanted to share those traits here on this blog. Finally, I am doing it:

1. TALENT: This is the most insignificant of all qualities. Insignificant and overrated. How can one ever tell that he has got talent? How can someone else do it for him? If I believe I have talent, don't I have it? If I believe I have talent, do I really have it? This quality is insignificant because there is no point in dwelling into it. But still, you've got to have talent. I wish I were a good cricketer. I really do. But I just didn't have the talent. So, if you can assess your writing skills the way I can my cricketing skills, ask this question to yourselves. If not, just forget it and believe in yourself.

2. PASSION: This is also insignificant. Because passion alone can take you nowhere. But this is essential. The passion you have for movies and writing will help your longevity in this tough industry, will heal your wounds, will keep you on with an empty stomach and worn out shirt. If you are not doing it for the love of movies, quit NOW. But how do you know if you've got passion? Well, I think just ask these questions: Do you eagerly await the release of some movies? In your conversations with friends, do you often bring up movies? Do you think of movies every day at least once? If you haven't watched a movie for some time, do you feel a void within you? In my case, a big YES is the answer to each of these questions. Hope the same for you.

3. COURAGE: It takes courage to isolate yourself from the entire world, trying to create something. A couple of years flash by and people start asking - what about that script you were writing? It takes courage to answer that question. It takes courage to tell your loved ones that your time will come. It takes courage to tell yourself that the usual pleasures and conventional life enjoyed by others will have to wait. It takes courage to spend months and years on a script, knowing very well that the film may never be made. It takes courage to finish the draft and send it out to others to judge it and take their feedback. And it takes courage to start all over again, re-writing, and giving your all, again.

4. CONSISTENCY: Can you consistently come up with good ideas? Can you willingly and sincerely go into the research for your script and work hard on it? Can you get yourself to the chair and write every day? Can you write a fresh script after one you have just finished? Or every time you do one of these things, you feel the need to take a break and go on a vacation. Quit NOW, if that is the case. Writing, as I always say, is manual labour. You have to churn out work hours. Or you will go nowhere.

5. PERSISTENCE: The more you get into screenwriting, the more you realise the truth behind the mantra: "Writing is Re-writing." Can you write several drafts of your screenplay? Can you keep working on it for months and years together, trying to perfect it to your heart's content? Persistence, according to me is the most valuable quality a screenwriter can have. Read about David Seidler. His first widely recognised work 'The King's Speech' (2010) came when he was 73. He received an Academy Award for it and today he must be proud of his life that was spent in order to create that one magnificently inspiring screenplay. After all, it might just take one week of magical inspiration for a writer to create a masterpiece of a draft. But no one can say when that one week will be bestowed upon him. The answer to this is persistence. If we keep looking for it, working hard, may be ten years down the line, or twenty, or thirty, we will get that one week of magical inspiration and we will create our masterpiece. If Seidler had given up after reaching the age of 65, we wouldn't be talking about him here.

6. FLEXIBILITY: The script evolves as you work on it. Do you have it in you to acknowledge that evolution? Do you have it in you to evolve as a person with time or you are too rigid to change? Are you open to feedback? Can you take feedback without being defensive? Can you consider each feedback with an objective mind? Can you acknowledge and accept all kinds of emotions that a writer feels in his journey with each script? If you are not flexible, writing a great script is still possible. But will you be able to survive as a great writer, all your life?

7. VOICE: Have you got anything to say? Do you have a world-view, a perspective on things? Have you experienced life in a way no one else has done? Do you feel the need to interpret things in your way and make it accessible for others? In short, are you an author? Or you are someone who is interested in churning out genre films, doing the same thing again and again, not bothering about finding your own, unique voice?

8. KNOWLEDGE OF THE CRAFT: Screenwriting has to be learnt. It's not poetry that you do for yourself. It's an art and a craft, and needs to be structured in such a way that hundreds of people can use it to work as a team and create a film, that financiers back it, that distributors buy the film it results into, that audience loves it. A musician who says - I don't give a damn about the theory behind the musical notes and rhythms is saying no to the valuable information his predecessors have accumulated for him. Screenwriters who believe there is no need to learn the craft know nothing about screenwriting.

9. EXPERIENCE OF WRITING: How many pages have you written as a writer? How many drafts have you written? Until today, in the past six-seven years, I have written around 25 drafts of various screenplays. It would be roughly 2500 pages, not counting the short scripts. I know I could have done more. I know the more you write, the easier it gets. Every time you start a fresh draft, after a gap of a few weeks, writing the first page is so damn difficult. And once you have been writing regularly for just about seven days, the eighth day is that much easier. There are a lot of 'writers' who have a lot of ideas and concepts, which they believe are 'kick-ass'! But when you ask them if they have ever completed one 100-page draft of a screenplay, their face says it all. Like all things in the world, experience of actually doing it always helps.

10. CONVICTION: Do I need to say more. Conviction - this one word tells it all. Self-belief. The funny thing is, if you have got conviction, you can afford to ignore all the above mentioned qualities. "I do not have too much of talent or passion. I don't work hard and I'm not disciplined. I can not take criticism, and I fear failure. I do not have anything unique to say. I don't know the craft and I have never written a word. But I believe in myself and one day I will prove it to you!" See, conviction works even for this writer friend of ours. So, if you have any one of the above mentioned qualities, you should feel lucky! But if you do not have conviction, then all the nine qualities mentioned above will fail to take you anywhere. I believe conviction is the soul of our profession, persistence is the body, and passion is the heart. If you have these three, all the rest can be learnt or acquired. After all, what makes an artist other than a journey of seeking forever? Who said this? James Joyce? Perhaps.

P.S. I started the 'Must Watch' recommendations in September 2010. Before that I had watched several movies that must feature in this list. But in order to save myself from the useless and predictable exercise of recommending all great movies, I decided to follow a simple eligibility criterion: The movies recommended here would be among those I watched or re-watched since September 2010. So please do not be surprised if 'Cinema Paradiso' or 'Apocalypse Now' (which are, in my opinion, definite Must Watch) do not feature in here. They will find a place in the list the day I re-watch them.